Riders will have two chances to earn their way into this year’s Cow Horse Challenge at the 2022 The Run For A Million.
Last year, Zane Davis and Rubys Radar won the event then called the Fence Work Challenge that was a $150,000 invitational class open to the top 15 riders on the National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) Open Rider List. Officials from the NRCHA said Friday that the qualifiers will be run concurrently with the Open Bridle classes in March at the Teton Ridge Stallion Stakes in Las Vegas, Nevada, and in June at the DT Horses Western Derby in Scottsdale, Arizona, in June.
The qualifier events will be an add-on to the Open Bridle and will have a $1,000 entry fee with $5,000 added money from The Run For A Million at each. The top 8 riders at each event will earn an invitation to The Run For A Million Cow Horse Challenge.
In this format, it is the riders who qualify to compete – not the horse. Riders do not have to compete on the same horse they qualified aboard.
“The cow horse was a fan-favorite at The Run For A Million in 2021,” The Run For A Million Producer Taylor Sheridan said in a statement released by the NRCHA. “In 2022 we’ll be doubling down on cow horse, bringing you the very best NRCHA bridle horses and professionals in the Cow Horse Challenge, and some of the best hands from America’s biggest ranches in the Cowboy Invitational.”
Cowboy Invitational
Officials also announced a new event at this year’s The Run For A Million, the Cowboy Invitational.
Using the NRCHA Cowboy Class format, the competitors in the invitational will complete a traditional reining and cow work run, and then will come back for a second turn in the arena for steer stopping.
The following ranches are among those that have been invited to send cowboys for the inaugural event:
- 6666 Ranch (Guthrie, TX)
- Bogle Ltd. (Dexter, NM)
- R.A. Brown Ranch (Throckmorton, TX)
- San Lucas Ranch (Santa Ynez, CA)
- Singleton Ranches (Lamy, NM)
- Stuart Ranch (Caddo, OK)
- Tongue River Ranch (Dumont, TX)
- Wagonhound Land & Livestock (Douglas, WY)
- Waggoner Ranch (Vernon, TX)
